


Near-Death Experiences

by birdthatlookslikeastick



Category: Discworld
Genre: Crack, Crossover, Fusion, Humor, anthropomorphic death, scythe use, throwaway cabbage reference, throwaway mathematics reference, unnecessarily complicated explanations for immortality, unsuccessful pickup lines, viscous rivers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-28
Updated: 2015-12-28
Packaged: 2018-05-09 17:34:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5549324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/birdthatlookslikeastick/pseuds/birdthatlookslikeastick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Henry Morgan, physician for the Ankh-Morpork Assassin's Guild, has a reoccurring date with Death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Near-Death Experiences

**Author's Note:**

  * For [athenasdragon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/athenasdragon/gifts).



> Far above the world, Death nodded. You could choose immortality, or you could choose humanity. You had to do it for yourself. —Terry Pratchett, "Soul Music"

A rickety long-haul carriage rumbled across the Sto Plains.

To the left, there lay cabbage.

To the right, other cabbage.

Above, a grey sky. Not exactly an angry sky, not yet—the clouds were balled up like fists, but they weren't throwing their punches. They were looking testy, there was no doubt. Further down the road, they had moved on to being disgruntled. 

In the distance on all sides, lay… Well, not quite the horizon, exactly, because the horizon is what you see when the curvature of the earth spoils your fun. Any Earthly plains-dweller will tell you that the horizon has a warm familiarity, a certain nearness, which this horizon lacked. It was _farther away_. Almost as though the world of our story was not curved at all—which it was not.

Below the wheels of the carriage lay a dirt road, tamped into a hard surface by the feet of many horses, countless head of livestock, and innumerable wooden wheels. 

Below that, there was bedrock—and below that, the four quarter-world-sized elephants, and below _those_ , Great A'Tuin the turtle, swimming slowly and inexorably through the void.

Atop the carriage was the driver, running his horses hard, slightly hungry, and well aware that he was thirty minutes behind schedule. He will play no significant role in this story, other than by dying under mysterious (and unexplained) circumstances, so we shan't dwell on him long.

Within the carriage was one passenger: a forbidding-looking woman, who at once appeared to be in her mid-thirties and yet also as old as time itself. She was browsing through a mathematical paper, occasionally pausing to brush a wisp of hair out of her face. Her hair was white with a streak of black, and it appeared to have its own opinions about how it ought to be organized.

Many miles behind the carriage was the city of Ankh-Morpork—described by some as the jewel in the Discworld's crown, and by others as the gunk used by cut-rate jewelers to affix jewels _to_ crowns.

And off in the distance, a tiny figure with impeccable posture waited patiently at the next carriage stop, amongst the cabbage. As the carriage drew closer and closer, one could make out a rather nicely cut suit, a fine woolen scarf and neatly trimmed curly hair. 

His name was Henry Morgan.

Further off in the distance, the clouds grew eldritch, and thunder boomed. 

***

Henry Morgan boarded the carriage, taking in his surroundings with a quick glance, and noting that they included an attractive young lady. Long trips tended to be nicer, Henry had oft remarked, if there were attractive young ladies about who could be impressed with his extensive worldly knowledge; he had a certain peacock-like inclination towards showing off. 

_Hmm,_ he wondered. _How best to approach this? Perhaps the usual observant-and-creepy approach? Let's see… an observation here, a deduction there… ah, yes._

"Good day," said Henry Morgan, in Borogravian.

The lady frowned, and immediately started to fade from his perception. It wasn't that she was becoming invisible—rather, Henry felt disinclined to notice that she was there, for some reason. 

This seemed... off-script, somehow. 

Henry frowned, concentrating extremely hard on the the woman’s presence, and to some degree it worked. Henry had an unusually keen eye for observation, especially as regarding matters of mortality, which turned out to be deeply relevant to the task of keeping the young woman in view; she was trying her damndest to disappear.

Actually, what better way to focus on her than to continue talking? Familiar territory, at least.

"Aren't you curious how I knew you spoke Borogravian?" he asked, rather lamely.

After a few seconds of failing to be unobtrusive, she stopped trying, extremely irked. Instead, she simply stared Henry down for an uncomfortably long time.

"I could tell by the chocolate you were eating, " he added. "It's from Wienrich and Boettcher's, on Zephire Street, and they are well-known to be Borogravian refugees. However they do not display that particular blend of chocolate in their store. I infer that it is a special order, and such an order simply must be made in Borogravian; the Morporkian language lacks the cadence to describe the ingredients..."

The stare went on. Her eyes bored into Henry Morgan like gimlets. 

The carriage had progressed, by now, into the edge of the storm. The thunder, done with booming, began to crash. Lightning split the sky, and the clouds began dispensing sheets of rain. The road now ran alongside a rather deep chasm, so deep that the bottom could not be seen. At this point, perhaps sensing the direness of the foreshadowing, the carriage driver experienced a sudden, severe chest pain and a complete inability to breathe. His face turned abruptly red and he keeled over in his seat, eyes wide and mouth frothing. His hands dropped the reins and grasped at the air. The horses cantered on, nervous and unguided.

"... so, you are a mathematician, then?" said Henry, within the carriage.

The staring continued to not stop.

"I happened to see a treatise of Professor Y. Bastard's on Diophantine Analysis in your hand there. It is quite evidently unpublished, which suggests you correspond with him personally. No mean feat, as I believe that he is a llama..." 

An eyebrow twitched. And twitched again. Then a cheek muscle. Then, in a voice made of pure killing, she finally spoke.

"A camel. Professor Bastard is a camel."

"Ah!" Henry Morgan broke into a grin. "Yes, that's true, but you weren't going to say anything unless I offended your sensibilities, were you? My name is Henry Morgan. And you are...?"

Another interminable silence passed. The woman frowned slightly. Rummaging in her shoulder bag, she withdrew an ancient, ornate hourglass and inspected it carefully. She then replaced it and regarded Henry Morgan coolly. 

"You are about to die, Henry Morgan," she said matter-of-factly. "And with you, this awful attempt at conversation. Tell me, have you ever managed to secure a date using this technique?"

Henry was intrigued. Random death threats were a most uncommon response to his flirting techniques.

"I rather doubt that I'm about to die... but what makes you think that I am?

The woman smiled. Henry couldn't shake the idea that she had more teeth than she really ought to. Not in number… it was just a very toothy smile. Sort of _grim_ , he thought. 

"Oh, I have some inside information on the matter, if you will. My name is Susan Sto Helit. You, Henry Morgan, are about to meet my grandfather. In a matter of _seconds_ , it seems. My, my.”

And indeed, at that moment the carriage approached a hairpin turn. Another lightning strike spooked the horses, who did exactly the wrong thing, lacking the driver's guidance: they bolted off the road and into the chasm. The carriage followed, tumbling end over end, hanging in the air for three dreadful seconds of freefall.

It landed on the ground and disintegrated into wreckage with an ugly crunch. The oil powering the headlamps burst into flames.

In accordance with universal law, one burning wheel rolled out of the wreckage. It came to rest at the feet of a large white horse with a tall rider robed in black, who had somehow been there all along.

***

Susan stepped self-possessedly out of the wreckage of the carriage, handbag in hand.

SUSAN, said Death.

"Hello, Grandfather," said Susan. "You've got this under control, I take it?"

I HAVE GOT THIS, said Death.

"Um, I hate to ask, but my carriage has crashed, and I really must get back to Sto Helit—"

I CAN GIVE YOU A RIDE BACK TO STO HELIT WHEN I AM DONE HERE.

"Excellent, thank you," said Susan. "I'll just find a dry spot; I have a paper to read." She stalked off.

BUT YOU MUST COME FOR TEA SOON, Death added. ALBERT MISSES YOU.

Susan, without stopping, nodded curtly. Albert, the butler at her Grandfather’s abode, was a kindly man, in his way.

ALBERT HAS BEEN GIVEN A NEW TEA COZY, added Death. IT WAS KNITTED BY GYTHA OGG, IF I RECALL. He paused. WHO AM I KIDDING. I ALWAYS RECALL.

"Yes, Grandfather," she replied, still not turning around. "I'll come for tea when I can."

RIGHT, THEN, said the tall black figure, unsheathing a large scythe. It was a perfectly normal agricultural tool, if extremely well-maintained. It meant business, and the business it meant was serious.

He walked to the bodies of the two horses and the carriage driver. There were three swooshing sounds.

***

Henry Morgan's spirit, now insubstantial, stood up from his broken body and stepped out of the flaming remains of the carriage. He would have been feeling irritated and indignant, but for the curious (and literally accurate) sense of detachment that near-death dissociative experiences tend to provide.

HENRY MORGAN, said Death. IT HAS BEEN SOME TIME.

"Indeed it has," said Henry Morgan. 

AND ONCE AGAIN YOU ARE OUT OF TIME, IT SEEMS. 

"It would certainly appear so," said Henry. Death withdrew an hourglass from his robes with one skeletal hand—the very same glass, Henry couldn't help noticing, that Susan had viewed minutes before. It was ornate and somewhat worn, oak-framed, with the words "Henry Morgan" engraved on a nameplate at the bottom.

There were only a few grains of sand remaining in the upper bulb, rapidly hissing into the bottom. 

Then there were three grains, then two... and then one. 

As the final grain of sand fell through the pinch, two tiny circles of octarine flame flashed into existence within the hourglass: one at the top of the top bulb, and one at the very bottom of the bottom bulb, directly under the heap of sand. 

Death peered closer, pushing his hood back, revealing that his head was, in fact, a shiny white skull. He regarded the glass closely with an empty eye socket. Henry, a doctor and a rationally minded fellow, idly wondered whether this helped.

A single grain of sand fell out through the bottom ring of fire and, without disappearing or going "poof" or indeed showing anything at all was out of the ordinary, it fell out of the top circle. 

Two more grains of sand fell through the tiny hole in the bottom bulb, and out of the tiny hole in the top bulb, as if they had been sewn together around the back side of space. 

Four more grains followed. The two holes appeared to be growing. A thin, steady stream of sand began to flow.

Susan Sto Helit strode curiously over, her forgotten mathematical paper dangling from her left hand. 

"Grandfather, what is it?"

"’Grandfather?’ _Your grandfather is Death_?" demanded Henry, who was ignored completely.

I DO NOT KNOW, said Death. HENRY MORGAN'S LIFE SEEMS TO BE... RESTARTING. 

The sand flowed faster and faster through the ring of fire. Now there was enough sand in the top bulb to begin running through the neck of the timer—but the upper bulb was filling more rapidly now; sand was beginning to accumulate in it.

IT IS NOT THE FIRST TIME THIS HAS HAPPENED TO THIS MAN, he added.

Halfheartedly, Death tipped the hourglass on one side. The sand, clearly not strongly influenced by gravity, continued to flow—slowly from source bulb to target, and quickly through the tiny, fiery gateway from the target bulb back to the source. There was a good-sized pile in the top bulb by now.

As the sand passed back into the top bulb of the hourglass, Henry Morgan's body appeared more and more substantial.

Death would have sighed, had he lungs.

PERHAPS YOU ARE NOT OUT OF TIME JUST YET, HENRY MORGAN, said Death.

Susan frowned. This just wasn't how things were supposed to go. It wasn't _sensible_. She regarded Henry Morgan accusingly.

"Don't blame me," said Henry. "I didn't ask for this either. Wait—how did _you_ survive the crash? Also, can I just ask you about your ancestry for a moment?"

"I don't tend to not survive," said Susan. "And no. Also, button it."

The tiny gateway had opened a quarter inch wide, and was now irregularly oscillating in size. The sand was pouring through it, falling through the bottom hole and out the top hole, as nonchalantly as if it were taking a shortcut to the store through an abandoned lot. The top chamber of the hourglass was replenishing rapidly. 

Suddenly, the two circles of sand winked out of existence, and the hourglass began functioning as usual—but with a much larger supply of grains of time in the upper bulb. 

Death stood staring at the glass. He seemed... irritated? _embarassed_? He pulled up his cowl, turned and offered a carrot from his robes to his horse, who whickered and munched contentedly. 

After a minute or so, Death straightened, mounted his horse, and turned back to Henry.

WELL THEN, HENRY MORGAN, YOU KNOW THE DRILL, said Death. SUSAN? WE ARE LEAVING.

"Coming, Grandfather," said Susan, stuffing her paper into her satchel and mounting the horse with a practiced motion.

Death scooped up Henry Morgan around the midsection with his bony left arm, and took the reins with his other hand. Henry dangled limply. The horse took off.

***

The trio flew across the landscape at a rather unreasonable speed. Henry Morgan, reunited with his body and thus no longer divorced from the reality of... reality, appeared slightly green. Binky was making good speed, and Henry's limbs flapped about in the wind listlessly. 

"Do we really need to go quite this fast?" he asked. He closed his eyes and tried to pretend that nothing out of the ordinary was going on. 

"Yes," said Susan. "My grandfather has much to do today, and Binky knows it. Also, I'm actually in somewhat of a hurry to return home."

IT IS AT TIMES LIKE THIS THAT WE MAKE SMALL TALK, announced Death. HOW IS THE FAMILY, HENRY MORGAN? 

Henry was not at all sure he wanted to discuss his family with Death, but he felt he had little choice. 

"Oh, well, Abraham is running a shop across from the Mended Drum, and really that's all the family I have."

Henry tried to keep his eyes clamped shut, but on the rare occasion when he opened them, The Discworld flashed past beneath him, both too close and too far for comfort. The rippling muscles and rolling gait of the horse reminded Henry of his time on a ship—an unpleasant memory for so many reasons. The sensation of being carried like a sack of potatoes by an anthropomorphic skeleton was less nautical (and yet more familiar, as this happened every time he died). He fought to keep his seasickness under control.

AND THE CAREER? STILL DIGGING GRAVES? 

"No, actually. I'm a physician for the Assassin's Guild. Interesting work."

"The assassins have need of physicians?" asked Susan, surprised.

"Oh, yes; everyone gets ill sometimes. I mean, our clients themselves are usually rather past medical help, and in any event they would not be... eligible. No, it's often more a matter of figuring out *how* someone died, and why. That sort of research is rather good for business." 

"Is it?" asked Susan.

IT IS, interjected Death.

"Oh yes, it tends to generate new contracts. Though there is definitely quite a bit of downtime. In fact, as a side business, we help the City Watch identify causes of death. Um, so, I gather that you two are related, are you?" 

Neither Susan nor Death replied. Small talk was one thing, but neither of them was the sort to discuss the obvious. 

***

WE ARE HERE.

Binky had arrived in Ankh-Morpork, and had stopped just beside the brass bridge. The rain was a lot milder here; it was pooling on the surface of the famously thick and chunky River Ankh. The large horse stepped, with some distaste, out onto the surface of the river. The horse had a magical and unsettling ability to stand motionless on any surface, or indeed in thin air, but for once this ability was not needed; the river Ankh was easily viscous enough to support the weight. 

Not unkindly, Death deposited Henry Morgan on the surface of the river. 

STRIP, PLEASE. 

"I really wish this wasn't necessary," he said, unbuttoning his waistcoat. "I like this suit."

IT IS THE RULE, said Death, producing a suit hanger from his robes. ALBERT KEEPS THEM ALL IN A LARGE WARDROBE AND STEAMS THEM OCCASIONALLY. YOU SHOULD COME BY SOMETIME.

Susan pointedly turned her back on Henry Morgan as he began to disrobe.

Henry handed the pieces of the suit, one at a time, to Death, who took each solemnly and hung it on the hanger. He then hung the hanger on a knob on Binky's saddle, as the river began to ooze up between Henry's toes.

Henry paused. “The scarf, too?” he said reluctantly. Not that he wanted to be wearing just a scarf, but there were strategic possibilities. And, damnit, he liked his suit, but he _quite_ _liked_ his scarf. He _cared_ about scarves.

Death sat straight as a ramrod on his white stallion, impassive and forbidding; his granddaughter behind him no less so. He extended a bony hand, at the end of a bony arm.

PONY UP.

Sighing, Henry Morgan removed the scarf and handed it over.

THANK YOU AND FARE THEE WELL, HENRY MORGAN, said Death, riding off into the night. UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN. THOUGH I WOULD APPRECIATE IT IF YOU TOOK THESE MATTERS MORE SERIOUSLY NEXT TIME.

Henry, sighed, nude and resigned to his fate. He cupped his hands low and tromped off towards the north bank of the river, each step making a _splop_ sound. He kept an eye out for the City Watch; He hadn’t considered how much more awkward his aquatic reincarnations would be now that he actually _worked_ with the people arresting him for indecency.

He thought back on the events of the past hours. Who was Susan Sto Helit, really? He was intrigued. She was another immortal, it seemed—the second such he’d met. And why had the carriage crashed? What on _earth_ was going on? He padded onto the bank of the river and made for the shadowy path up to the brass bridge.

Well, it would all be resolved in the future, he thought. No sense getting into such matters without a line of investigation.

There hadn't been as much sand in the top bulb has Henry really would have liked, this time, he mused as he padded down the dark alleyways of Ankh-Morpork, back towards his home.

“Halt! City Watch!”

Henry Morgan sighed and turned around to see two Watchmen approaching. One was average height and rather portly; the other short and enshrouded in a permanent cloud of cigarette smoke and general disreputability. They weren’t moving too quickly, presumably in the hopes that the issue would resolve itself before they arrived, but the tall one did have handcuffs out should the situation fail to disappear.

Henry Morgan grinned brightly, if somewhat ruefully.

“Look, it’s a long story…”

**Author's Note:**

> I thought "What if I redid the first few minutes of the Forever pilot, but on the Discworld?" and then suddenly everything was clear.


End file.
